CHAP. 2. as it is sometimes termed, by which the ore is measured, contains, in the High Peak, sixteen pints; in the Low Peak, only fourteen.* Origin of the Laws. Sorts of Ore. Smelting The origin of the mineral laws of Derbyshire is unknown; but it appears, from historical records, that Edward the First directed the sheriff of the county to call a meeting, at Ashbourn, of such persons as were best acquainted with the rights and customs of the mines. On this occasion, the miners petitioned that their privileges should be confirmed under the Great Seal, as an act of charity to reserve them from the danger to which they were exposed. In the reigns of Edward the Sixth and Queen Mary, several alterations were made in the mineral laws; and within the last twenty years various new regulations have been approved, and passed into laws, at the great Barmote courts of the High Peak and wapentake. The ore of lead is divided into four denominations, according to its quality. The largest, and best sort, is called bing; the next in size, and equal in quality, is named pesey; the third is smitham, which passes through the sieve in washing; the fourth, which is caught by a very slow stream of water, and is as fine as flour, is termed belland: it is inferior to all the others, on account of the admixture of foreign particles. All the ore, as it is raised from the mine, is beaten into pieces, and washed before it is sold: this part of the business is performed by women, who earn about tenpence or a shilling per day. When the ore is properly cleansed and dressed, it is conveyed to the smelting furnaces. These formerly were of two kinds, the hearth, and cupola; but the latter is now generally prevalent. The hearth furnace consisted of large rough stones, placed so as to form an oblong cavity, about two feet wide and deep, and fourteen long, into which the fuel and ore were put in alternate layers; the heat being raised by means of a large pair of bellows, worked by a water-wheel: the fuel, wood and coal. The lead obtained by this process was very pure, soft, and ductile; but as a considerable quantity of metal remained in the slags, these were again smelted in a more intense fire made with coke: the lead produced by this means was inferior in quality to the former. The cupola furnace was introduced into Derbyshire about 105 years ago, by a physician named Wright. It is of an oblong form, somewhat resembling a long, but not very deep chest, the top and bottom of which are a little concave. The fire being placed at one end, and a chimney at the other, the flame is drawn through the furnace, in which about 1800 weight of ore is strewed at one time, and thus smelted by the reverberation of the heat, without ever coming in contact with the fuel. The time required for this process is indeterminate, as some ores may be worked in six hours; but others require seven, eight, or nine, according to the nature of the substances that are attached to them. The ore which is united with spar is the most easily fused; and not un * The brazen dish by which the measures of ore in the Low Peak are regulated, has the following inscription. "This Dishe was made the iiij day of October the iiij yere of the Reigne of Kyng Henry the VIII before George Erle of Shrowesbury Steward of the Kyngs most Honourable household and also Steward of all the honour of Tutbery by the assent and Consent aswele of all the Mynours as of all the Brenners within and Adioynyng the lordshyp of Wyrkysworth percell of the said honour. This Dishe to Remayne In the Moote hall at Wyrkysworth hangyng by a Cheyne So as the Merchanntes or mynours may have resorte to the same at all tymes to make the trw mesure after the same." CHAP. 2. Annual frequently a small quantity of this mineral is thrown into the furnace to accelerate the process. When the flame is applied to the ore, great care is taken that it may not be intense, as a strong heat occasions the lead to fly off with the sulphur. The lead, when smelted, is poured into moulds of various sizes, according to the different markets for which it is intended; Hull, Bawtry, or London. Two blocks make a pig; and eight of these a fodder. A considerable quantity of this metal is converted into red lead in different parts of the county. This process is performed in a kind of oven, the floor of which is divided into three parts: the lead is placed in the middle division, and the fire in the spaces on each side. The flames being reverberated on the metal, convert it into a calx, or powder; which, on being a second time exposed to the action of the fire, acquires a red colour. Great care is requisite in the due regulation of the heat, particularly in the former part of the operation. The annual produce of lead from the Derbyshire mines cannot be exactly ascertained, but may be estimated at an average of between 5000 and 6000 tons. The trade of late years has been generally thought on the decline, as the increase of depth renders the mines more difficult to be worked, as well as more expensive; yet, from the improvements that have been made in the art of smelting, and the more effectual methods employed to relieve the mines of water, by the driving of new levels, and the erection of some improved fire-engines and other machinery, advantages have been obtained, which, to a certain extent, counterbalance the augmented expenses. In addition to the preceding account of the lead works, which has been altered and improved for our use by a gentleman of great experience in mining affairs, from what he regards as an explicit and generally correct statement given in the "Beauties of England and Wales," we shall venture to draw up a short abstract from our own notes and observations.-The mines of Derbyshire produce galina, sulphuret of lead or blue lead ore crystallized in cubes; but square and hexagonal pyramids, and other forms of lead ore sometimes occur. The white lead ore of Derbyshire is comparatively a modern discovery: for centuries it was regarded as a useless spar, and either left in the mines or buried in the hillocks, from which considerable quantities of white ore have since been extracted. It is a carbonate of lead, and is sometimes called wheatstone.-The mines in Brassington, Great Hucklow, Tideswell, and Winster, produce a green ore of lead, but the yellow ores, although noticed by Mr. Mawe, are not of common occurrence in Derbyshire.—There are very few, if indeed any, mineral veins in this county, that can be said to be of modern discovery. All veins have a communication with the surface in some part of their course, where they were in old times known and wrought, according to the common expression of the miners, by the old men. To encourage the search for ore, laws were framed, which conferred upon the miners peculiar privileges, of which we shall shortly have occasion to speak, and respecting which we have given some curious documents in the appendix (9). Under the sanction of these laws, which authorised any enterprising man to remove the soil and to commence his researches, even upon the land of his neighbour, very extensive discoveries were made. The veins of mineral ore were traced through the upper limestone rock, until they were lost under the cover of the shale. There it has belonged more particularly to modern miners, aided by the improvements in machinery and science to pursue them, and to avail themselves of the increasing width and richness of the veins which repay them beneath the shale. It must not be understood that lead mines were not carried to considerable extent by the ancients, but many of those which have recently become the most productive, were left unworked for want of the means of penetrating into their widest and wealthiest cavities. In more modern periods, the veins of the lower limestone rocks, including even the fourth, have been traced from the naked surfaces of the limestone under the toadstone, which covers each of these rocks respectively. CHAP. 2. Veins of Lead Ore. the Lead Mines. The lead ore so abundant in this county must have held a distinguished Antiquity of character among the natural products of Britain, in the earliest ages, and was undoubtedly one of the principal objects that induced the commercial people of Tyre and Carthage, as well as the travelling merchants who conducted a line of traffic from the confines of Italy and Greece to Belgium, to visit our shores. The rake veins, of which the treasures are now only to be obtained with labour, aided by improved machinery, from amid the recluse beds of limestone rock, were then perceptible amid the loose and crumbling schistus, that scarcely covered their wealthy orifices. It was to this state of the lead mines of Derbyshire that Pliny alludes, in the celebrated passage to which our learned Camden refers. “In Britain,” says the great Roman naturalist, "in the very upper crust of the ground, lead is dug up in such plenty, that a law was made on purpose to stint them to a set quantity."* To what extent the lead ore was sought after by the Britons themselves, or by the people who visited them for the purposes of trade, cannot now be ascertained; it must suffice us to have incontrovertible proof, that under the government of the Romans, the lead of this county had become a very important article of commerce. Blocks or pigs of lead have been discovered, having Latin inscriptions, and in the neighbourhood of the mines are to be traced the remains of Roman stations, houses and burial places. of Lead. A Roman pig of lead, weighing 126 pounds, was found on Cromford Roman Pigs moor near Matlock, in the year 1777, having the following inscription in raised letters on the top. IMP. CAES. HADRIANI. AUG. MET. LVT. A second was discovered near Matlock, in 1783. It weighed 84 pounds, and was 19 inches long at the top, and 22 at the bottom. Its width at the top was 34 inches, and at the bottom 44. The inscription appears to contain these letters. L. ARVCONI. VERECVND. METAL. LVTVD. * Gibson's Translation of Camden, p. 494. CHAP. 2. A third, with the inscription also in raised letters on the top, was found Roman Pigs on Matlock moor in the year 1787. It weighed 173 pounds, and was 17 inches in length, in breadth at bottom 204. f Lead. TI. CL. TR. LVT. BR. EX. ARG. Antiquity of the Lead Mines. These inscriptions have given rise to various conjectures, and, accordingly, to a great display of erudition; but if we conceive, the LVT and the LVTVD to be contractions of LUTUDARUM, the name of a Roman station, next in order, according to Ravennas, to Derventio or Little Chester, and which is supposed to be Chesterfield, much of the difficulty will vanish. The first will then be found to have the name of the emperor Hadrian, connected with the name of the metallic district of which it is probable that Chesterfield was then, as Wirksworth has subsequently been considered, the regulating town. Hence this inscription would mean no more than that the block of lead upon which it was stamped belonged to the emperor Cæsar Hadrian Augustus, from the metallic district of Lutudarum.—The second would be under this interpretation stamped with the name of its owner, a proprietor of some mines, perhaps, or a merchant, Lucius Aruconus Verucundus, with the addition, as before, of the name of the mining district. The third appears to mean that the lead upon which it is found impressed, is part of the tribute due to Tiberius Claudius, from the mines (silver or lead) of the British Lutudæ or Lutudarum.-These interpretations are by far the most conformable to custom and common sense. The Rev. Mr. Pegge could not, we think, have considered the subject, when he conjectured the first of these inscriptions to mean "The sixth legion inscribes this to the memory of the emperor Hadrian." Such a mode of paying honour to the memory of an emperor was never before imagined, and we might as justly assert, that the king's mark, impressed upon goods seized under an exchequer process, has for its object the memory of our gracious monarch. But whatever may be the strict interpretation of the inscriptions upon these blocks, they are, in themselves, indubitable evidence that the mines of Derbyshire were worked by the Romans, or more probably by the enslaved Britons, already acquainted with the rude processes of that era, under command of their conquerors. The Saxons, who succeeded the Romans in the conquest and dominion of Britain, did not neglect the treasures, so abundant in the centre of their acquisitions; and by their having called an important mine near Castleton, Odin, from the name of one of their divinities, to whom they may be supposed to have consecrated it, we have a proof, that previous to the introduction of christianity amongst them, they had directed their attention to the mineral wealth of the heptarchy. The mines in the neighbourhood of Wirksworth were wrought before the year 714; at which period that district belonged to the nunnery at Repton, over which Eadburga, the daughter of Adulph, king of the East Angles, presided as abbess. In that year the abbess sent to Croyland in Lincolnshire, for the |